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Cambridge Coincidences Collection

Professor David Spiegelhalter of Cambridge University wants to know about your coincidences!

Why? By recording your coincidence stories here, you can help him build a picture of what kinds of coincidences are out there and which ones seem to ‘get to’ us the most. Your coincidence stories can also help him explore the scientific explanations which may account for them – whether by doing the maths to calculate the chances of a coincidence, or speculating on the weird and wonderful workings of our brains.

Coincidences tend to be ‘surprising matches’ – sometimes they are lucky, sometimes unlucky, sometimes just mind-boggling. To help you recall the coincidences that have happened in your life, here’s a list of some common types of coincidence:

Surprising repetitions: for instance when you’ve had not contact with someone for ages, then find two connections to them very close together in time. Or when over several years multiple members of the same family are born with the same birthday. Or even a repetition of a really rare event – like winning the lottery twice, or your life being saved twice by the same person!

Simultaneous events: for example when two people phone each other at exactly the same time.

Parallel lives: such as when two people in a small group find they share a birthday or an unusual name, or when two people discover their lives match each other in bizarre details.

Unlikely chains of events: perhaps you lost your false teeth overboard and found them inside a fish you caught twenty years later?

If anything coincidental has happened to you - anything that made you stop and say "well, what were the chances of that..?" - then please record your story in the form below! Please try to keep your story personal - about you or someone you know. The only thing we'd ask you to steer clear of are premonitions or déjà vu, purely because - whilst fascinating - they're quite common and also difficult to analyse.

You could also tell us about coincidences in the news, but please provide a link to a reliable source!

Title: two or three words that give a simple description of your story, eg ‘old friend’ or ‘birthday coincidence’Coincidence: tell your coincidence story - and please include plenty of relevant detail (places, dates, numbers etc.) and include your first name if you want.Email address (optional): please leave an email address, as then we can get in touch to find out more!

All of the information entered below except your email address will be published on this website when you press save

Title *

Your Coincidence *

Coincidence stories can be considered as ‘meaningful matches’. Please click the type of story (you can click more than one)

Meeting someone you know in an unlikely place

Finding a link with someone you meet

Repetition of very similar events

Simultaneous occurrence of events

An object reappearing

Finding a link with an object

Parallel stories with multiple matches

A matching number

A matching name

A matching date

Matching Music

How would you rank your coincidence story?

N/A

* Quite surprising (eg would only expect to happen to me once a year)

** Very surprising (eg a once-in-a-lifetime event)

*** Extraordinary (eg once-in-a-hundred-lifetimes)

**** Eerily bizarre (amazed this would ever happen to anybody)

email address

By ticking this box you agree that your email address can be forwarded to Wingspan Productions Ltd, who are making a BBC television programme about Chance and would like to feature Professor David Spiegelhalter's coincidence collection. In doing so you agree that the producers of the programme may contact you directly to ask you more about your story, though whether you decide to help them is entirely up to you. Your details will not be forwarded to any other party or used for marketing purposes.

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Vertical Tabs

I had a massive crush on a boy recently. I would constantly dream of being in a relationship with him. I had a playlist of songs that reminded me of him. The most frequent song I listened to almost every day keeping him in mind was "We Found Love" by Rihanna. One day, I was on my way to an event. On my social media page, I had asked people if they were going to the event or not. You could simply vote "YES' or "NO". In the car, I checked the poll and to my surprise, the boy I adored voted that he was attending the event.

Breaking Benjamin is my favourite band of 2000s. Breaking Benjamin had so many hits! The ones I remember are 'The Diary of Jane', 'Tourniquet' and their hit 'So Cold'. These are real masterpieces, not garbage like today! And it is awesome that Breaking Benjamin have a tour in 2019-2020! And I'm going to visit Breaking Benjamin concert in 2019. The tour dates is here: [url=https://breakingbenjaminconcerts.com]Breaking Benjamin tour dates 2020[/url]. Open the page and maybe we can even visit one of the performances together!

Some 50 years ago I was a student at Oxford. During the Christmas holidays a friend and I climbed a snowy winter route on Tryfan (a mountain in Snowdonia). When we reached the top we headed towards Adam and Eve (two large rocks on the summit). There we met a couple having a picnic. We asked them where they had come from and they said "Oxford". We said "so do we - we live in Iffley Road". They said "so do we". We soon discovered that they were our next door neighbours - although we had never met.

In my mother's memoirs was a story about one of her asquitances, a dancer, who got job on a dancing team with famous circus. When I wrote my memoirs, I realised as I wrote about my dancing years, that I also had my dance team member, a girl, who got job with the same famous circus.

During my mother's young years, she met a young fellow, who helped her to get to college, yet they came up with a story that he and she are brother and sister, grew up in different families, for that reason he knew local ethnic language and she did not.
My mother never told us this story until I was in my 50s.
However, when I was very young I also met a young fellow, and came to visit him far away unexpectedly.

When I was in my twenties, I was fomer art student, and drew Greek mythical character Medusa Gorgona. The drawing existed for several years until ruined by water.
When my daughter turned 22, she, as Art Program student, drew, on her own accord, without ever knowing about my drawing, the Greek mythology character Medusa Gorgona.

Many years ago my cousin died and I was calling my mom with bad news. She picked up the phone, listened in disbeleaf and shock and when she looked at her watch, it stopped working. Prior to it her watch worked.
She did not know what to make of it, she felt it is mystical.

So I'm a fabricator, at work we needed a shelving unit. I built one to mimic those cheap grey garage shelving units. Installed it that afternoon. That evening my buddy calls and ame out of the blue if I wanted one he was cleaning out his garage. It just was 2 specific of a design.
Same guy next coincidence, so for two days I have been looking for a specific stand up tool to install screws in deck I'm building. Friend calls me this morning literally ten minutes after I ordered and told me he was lookinging into buying one of the guns for a sub floor job.

In the early 1970’s our family had returned to Coventry, UK after living many years in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.
My mother and I were not particularly close and certainly didn’t have “girlie” conversations.
One evening she mentioned that she had bought a lipstick but it was only available in a long slim cylinder and not the short squat cases that she liked. I mentioned that I actually preferred the long slim cases and that I had also bought a lipstick that day, but mine was in the short case.